Magic Hour
by Wild Iris
Summary: It's Christmas Eve in the Pottersville library, and Mary has one last visitor before she closes for the night.


**Magic Hour**

It comes over her again, as she shelves the last of the books hastily returned by townsfolk laden with shopping. That feeling that the world is out of joint. It's like everything tips sideways for a moment, though she is still standing on the thin carpet of the floor, hand raised toward the shelf.

Such sensations aren't uncommon, though people seldom talk about them, except with their eyes. Some say it's the War, which turned so many things upside down, and left parents unable to recognize their sons or sons their parents. Then, it's Christmas Eve; she supposes any spinster facing the holidays alone might think she had slipped between the cracks of normal life. And then there is the atmosphere of Pottersville itself. The town's whirl of lights and noise dazzles like a carnival; sometimes you don't know what's real and what's a mere false front, behind which muddy fields strewn with garbage stretch away into the dark.

The library is one of the town's few quiet places. That's one reason Mary works here, rather than in a hustling office or glitzy department store. Blinds filter the lights of the street, among which Christmas decorations are almost lost in the flash-flash-flash of the casinos. The rule of silence, which lies deeper than changes in government, hushes the noise from clubs and bars. Ranks of books, reaching backward into the past and forward to the future, remind her that all troubles thought unendurable are eventually defeated by time.

Most of the books whose titles face her are strictly practical. The funds allotted to the library stress that their purpose is to create doers, not dreamers. Manuals on bookkeeping, homemaking, and growing vegetables on windowsills line the shelves alongside Samuel Smiles and Horatio Alger. Poetry and fiction, save for robust tales of success and self-reliance, are in disfavor; the town council's directives hint strongly that anything else is a waste of its budget.

Yet not even Mr Potter can dismiss the classics. In their dull library covers there stand, straight-spined, Mark Twain and Henry David Thoreau, Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens. Authors who, like a cantankerous old grandfather, have earned through sheer venerability the right to criticize men like Mr Potter, but whose judgment can safely be ignored as a relic of another time and place.

Without emphasis that might raise questions, Mary recommends these books to children and teachers who come to her desk for advice. She talks about their classic status, the prizes they've won, their moral tone as commonly understood. She doesn't mention what to her is their major virtue: that, artistic beauty aside, they offer a vision of the world that is rooted in kindness rather than competition.

Children in Pottersville come in two varieties. Some are too loud and aggressive for their size. The others say too little; they keep their eyes down and shrink away from the space taken up by the loud ones. Those children, she thinks, need adventures in which worldly success is not the only miracle.

'Miss Hatch?' comes a little voice.

Mary shakes herself and slides the book she's holding into its place. Standing just inside the door is a boy of about eight, twisting a snowy cap between his hands.

'Hello there. How can I help you?'

She doesn't know the boy, but that means nothing. Pottersville is growing fast. Often most faces in the street are those of strangers.

'Am I too late for the Christmas reading program, miss?'

Mary embraces any child who signs up for her reading programs. 'Not at all. You've got - '. She looks at the clock, which says ten minutes to four; ten minutes till closing time. 'Twenty minutes left. I'll fix you a sign-up sheet and you can choose the books you want to read over the vacation.'

She takes the details of the boy, whose name is Michael, and gives him a record sheet printed on both sides and a packet of gold stars.

Clutching his sheet, Michael disappears into the children's section. Mary tidies her desk, straightening the stapler and gathering stray paper clips. There's nothing to do now but lock up and go home to her lodgings.

In the silence of the library, she's aware that she's waiting for something. Not just for Michael to return with his books, though she's eager to see what he's chosen. It's Christmas Eve. Even in this hollow corner of it, something of the world holds its breath.

Michael reappears. He carries a book about baseball and another in drab bindings whose title she can't make out.

'I'd like these, miss,' he says, dropping the books on the desk. 'I dunno what others to get. Haven't heard of most of 'em.'

'Maybe I can help with that. I've picked out some books children might like, especially this time of year.' She leads him to a table where books are propped upright beneath a swag of paper chains.

Screened by an extra-large _Robinson Crusoe_ is a hoard of treasures. She pulls out the one she's after: _A Christmas Carol_ , in an edition designed for children with nice big print. 'Have you read this? The story takes place on Christmas Eve, but long ago in another country. It's about a very rich, unpleasant man who's visited by ghosts.'

The boy reaches for the book, his tongue sticking out as he looks at the pictures. 'Marley was dead,' he tries from the first page, and nods as if it meets his requirements.

'I think my gran told me about this book once. Something about an old man and ghosts, anyway. She said the old fellow' – here he lowers his voice to a whisper, as if in dread of recording angels – 'was like Mr Potter.'

Even more vigilant of angels, Mary doesn't reply in words. She leans forward, making a tunnel between her eyes and the boy's, and drops her glasses long enough to wink.

She stamps the books. Michael goes out, holding them under his coat against the snow.

Alone, Mary looks around the orderly library and picks up her bag. Thinking of the evening and the day to follow, she swallows a sigh and squares her shoulders. Christmas alone isn't so bad. There will be friends to visit, books to read.

She's reaching for the doorknob when she stops, her attention caught by something at the corner of her eye.

On the returns trolley, which she's sure had been emptied, leans a single book. She picks it up. It's _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ , one of the books she most often recommends to children. This, however, isn't the library's copy. It's too old, antique, and there's no card pocket inside its cover.

Did the boy bring it in? He didn't look like the sort to own anything so valuable. Was it a Christmas gift? She knows no one who would give her such a thing.

She puts the book in a drawer, promising to discover its owner after the holiday. The clock reads just after four, and even in the library, early dark is creeping through the shades.

As she opens the door, a swirl of flakes blows in.

Late shoppers hurry home, heads bent against the wind. Laughter spills from the bars. Along the street comes the sound of a disturbance, shouting and running feet. Nothing unusual in Pottersville, yet for some reason she finds herself straining to hear. The details are blunted into vagueness by wind and snow.

Stepping over the threshold, once more she's overtaken by that sense that the world is somehow slantwise. For a moment the familiar door almost wavers in front of her eyes.

This time, though, the feeling has a different cast. It reminds her of childhood Christmases, when the season's alchemy revealed the potential for joy and wonder beneath the surface of the everyday world. Surroundings transformed by a curtain of snow. The feeling of time tilting on an axis, the birth of new hope at the dark ebb of the year.

As the sound of sirens fades into the winter night, Mary Hatch locks the library for the last time.


End file.
